


The consolation

by hippocrates460



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post Baskerville, The sex pollen story, boy howdy, but that's not super relevant, since we're mostly interested in the sex pollen here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-02-23 11:21:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23243974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hippocrates460/pseuds/hippocrates460
Summary: “Sex is the consolation you have when you can't have love”― Gabriel García Márquez(but what if, sometimes, maybe, you get to have both?)
Relationships: Mycroft Holmes/Greg Lestrade
Comments: 97
Kudos: 231





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Much love to all the MRC, who have read this and cheered me on, and to Narf who makes me better and the process of writing more fun. You're all stars <3

Greg had never been so thoroughly fed up with Sherlock before that morning and that’s of course saying a lot. He’d been divorced into going on holiday alone (not so bad), bullied into going to Baskerville (decidedly worse), and now locked up in a laboratory (really not how he was hoping to spend the day). What topped it all off, however, was that this was the laboratory with the door marked DANGER DO NOT ENTER, and Greg had been forced to enter because he’d been chased by a huge terrifying dog. And now he was stuck. His being fed up with Sherlock had reached new levels this morning, but by the afternoon it was up to volcanic, and Greg’s head is all cotton-y from it.

This laboratory has clearly been made to keep something in rather than out, and while at first he’d been terrified of finding out what it was, by hour six or seven he’d become just _bored_. He has reception, and his phone is currently being charged on a cable he’d found in a drawer in one of the desks (and hadn’t that been a fun way to spend almost two hours, turns out desk drawers are revolting everywhere!). He’s sore from playing Tetris all day, drained from the fear and the boredom and the lack of daylight. Apparently, Sherlock and John have left the premises to chase down a lead or something, but Greg has known for a while what Sherlock is like in a crisis. So he’d called Mycroft first.

The more useful of the Holmes brothers appears like a goddamn vision. The door from the lab slides open, bright light from the hallway shines in, outlining himself and his umbrella. “Thank god you’re here,” Greg says, his voice rough with joy and exhaustion, and Mycroft steps inside. “Wait!” He calls, but it’s too late. The door slides closed again.

“I’ve an entry card, Lestrade,” Mycroft says, like it’d be perfectly obvious that he has everything under control.

“Yeah? And where’ll you swipe it?” Greg’s struggling to remember the last time he was this unimpressed but then again, it has been a very long day.

Mycroft whirls around, and Greg moves closer to be able to see what his face looks like when he’s not totally in control. Still very good-looking, he finds. He stretches his back while looking at Mycroft.

Mycroft is on his phone in seconds, calling and rattling off instructions Greg can’t follow while flitting his eyes up and down the lab. It’s a mostly uninteresting place, to Greg, especially now that he’s nicked the chocolate biscuits from one desk drawer, and the charger from another. He keeps his eyes on Mycroft though. Who frantically paces up and down, and then with a snarl hangs up.

“Bad news?” Greg asks, holding out the package of biscuits to Mycroft.

Mycroft almost growls at him from the looks of things, flushed and terribly angry. “Surely even you can – ”

“I think you need a biscuit,” Greg interrupts him, and Mycroft just gapes at him in disbelief. “Seriously, if we need to be freed by someone from outside, and that phone call was bad news, then we’ll be here a while. May as well sit down.”

“Hours!” Mycroft yells, his eyes bright with anger. Bit strange, Greg thinks, what is going on outside that Mycroft can go in but it’d take a long time for him to be followed?

He turns away from Greg and starts digging into panels by the door, which seems a bit ridiculous and far-fetched until one gives. In surprise Greg steps closer again, and he sees Mycroft close his eyes, look at the ceiling, and enter an impossibly long string of numbers into the keypad. As soon as he’s done, all the doors including the one to the hallway open, and an alarm starts blaring. Then lights flicker with it, red and threatening, and Greg grabs Mycroft by the elbow, pulls him away.

He drags Mycroft through the door, to the stairs, and urges him to keep running knowing that whatever may have come loose with all the doors opening, he wants nothing to do with it. Sooner than he thought they would be, they’re outside of the building, panting in the cold night air, the sirens behind them.

Two figures walk up to them, and stop several meters away. Greg takes a step forward, and they step back before he realises that _of course_. “Where were you when the alarm started?” one of the men calls.

“6F,” Greg calls back, and he watches them look at each other, and back away slowly. “Fuck.”

“Indeed,” Mycroft agrees. He looks a little more dishevelled than Greg is used to, still catching his breath, and the way he clutches his phone reminds Greg that his own phone, probably fully charged by now, is still somewhere far below ground. _Fuck_.

They get approached again by a crowd of people in hazmat suits, and urged into the back of a van. Mycroft snaps out instructions to his assistant who apparently knows how to operate a Blackberry while covered head-to-toe in rubber. Then the van starts driving.

Mycroft sits on the little bench by the side with his face in his hands, swaying as the van turns but otherwise entirely silent, and Greg decides it’s time for his talents.

“Hey fellas?” he calls. “Any chance you can tell an old copper what’s going on?”

“Sure mate,” the intercom crackles with it. When Greg stretches to peek through the little window to the front part of the van he can see two people wearing hazmat suits, and that can’t be comfortable surely? “Far as we know you’ve been exposed to an unknown agent, it’s been determined it isn’t lethal and that it’ll wear off soon-ish but until then best to keep you in quarantine.”

“So we’re off to a hospital?” Greg asks, it’s starting to take effort not to raise his voice, he’s not comfortable and he doesn’t want them to know.

“Can’t,” Mycroft says, his voice a bit small as he continues not to look at Greg. No way Greg could fool Mycroft into thinking he’s fine. “It’s impossible to secure. There’s a safe house that’s stocked and solitary enough to be useful.”

“What’ll happen to me?”

“You’ll stay,” Mycroft explains it like it’s all mostly boring, but Greg knows that tone on him. “We are both proficient at first aid and basic security, it is best we are not alone, and this way we won’t needlessly affect anyone unexposed.”

“Makes sense,” Greg says, and he sees Mycroft relax with it, the wrinkle in his suit from where he was holding his shoulders wrong disappears. So predictable. “What are we to expect of the unknown agent?”

“It’s all highly classified,” a new voice says, through the intercom, like whatever it is isn’t _in_ Greg. “Tests done so far have all shown behavioural effects that last no more than a few days. Don’t seem like you’re having them though.”

It’s not true, Greg feels like a sinner in church, his clothes are sticky and sweaty and too-tight, he hopes it’s anything but a fever until _anything_ presents itself and then he wishes it were a fever. But he won’t be telling Hazmat 1 and 2 that.

“And what were those tests conducted on?” Mycroft asks, and Greg almost tells him _good question_. But he’s trying not to think about his sudden but insistent erection.

“Rats, sir,” the first voice says. They both groan.

The safe house turns out to be a strange little shed in the woods, absolutely no one around for miles judging by the absence of the droning of the motorways Greg always manages to miss when he’s away from London. Inside it’s comfortable enough, and when the van they arrived in has left again, another van shows up. “STAY AWAY,” someone bellows through a microphone, and Greg sees Mycroft take note of the license plate. When that van leaves again a nice large shopping bag from Tesco’s, and a leather weekender that probably has all the clothes Mycroft needs stands on the gravel.

“Lucky,” Greg says, and Mycroft frowns at him before he catches up.

“It’ll be well-stocked here I’m sure, and we could send for your things if you’d prefer, though it might take a day or so.”

“Whatever,” Greg turns to head inside, leaving Mycroft to deal with the bags. He’s not really mad at Mycroft for initiating the utter meltdown they’ve just witnessed, but he is feeling extremely aware that he’ll be wearing underwear that’s not his even though _he’d_ been perfectly content to wait for help to come.

Inside is like a little studio apartment. A kitchenette, the hum of a half-sized fridge that probably runs on a generator, a nice twin bed, a comfortable chair, and a door that leads to a bathroom. At least there’s a tv, Greg thinks, and then: “Did she pack you a charger?”

“Excuse me?” Mycroft asks, quite sensibly now that Greg thinks about it.

“Your PA,” he clarifies, as he gets to helping Mycroft unpack the groceries. “Did she pack you a charger for your phone.”

Mycroft zips open his bag, rummages around for a second, and then looks up at Greg. “She did.”

“Lucky,” Greg says again. At least there’s nice biscuits in here. He has a feeling they’ll be needing them. One more look around the shed they’ll be sharing makes the decision for him. He’ll have a shower.

The little bathroom is a bit cramped but it'll do for a nice good wank. Greg feels decidedly more human when he gets out again, even though he forgot to figure out post-shower clothing and so is made to awkwardly step around Mycroft while wearing only a towel. Mycroft has put away the groceries, it seems, and figured out tea somehow, judging by the steaming mug on the counter.

“That tea’s yours,” he hears, and when he turns around Mycroft is awkwardly holding his bag, his face a bit more pink than it should be. Maybe he heard Greg in the shower.

 _Yikes_ , thinks Greg. “Thanks,” he says. Then Mycroft disappears into the bathroom. The shower turns on immediately, and Greg settles in on the chair and tries to get the tv to work. He sips his tea and tries to think about how Mycroft only made one mug instead of the shower-situation. Was it really meant to be his? Or had he forgotten to make two? Is this a Holmes apology?

“There’s no reception,” he complains when he hears the door to the bathroom open. He’s made a pot of tea so they can share the next round, in a little pan because they don’t have teapots. “Only BBC1.”

“We could ask Anthea,” he hears Mycroft say, and whatever else it is he says gets lost to the rushing angry-ocean-against-rocks noise in Greg’s ears. He’s turned to look at him as he speaks, and that was apparently a terrible mistake. Mycroft is fresh from the shower, in sleeping clothes, with woollen socks and a woollen pullover and his hair still wet, awkwardly holding a towel. Greg is hard again so fast he can’t help the noise that escapes him, and Mycroft looks away with red-hot cheeks, embarrassed and frowning.

“Sorry,” Greg says, sitting up a little, sloshing his tea. “I’m – god I’m so sorry.” Mycroft’s nose wrinkles a little and he still won’t look back up. “What’s it you said? Please – please tell me again.”

“DVDs,” Mycroft tells the floor. “We could ask for – for DVDs to be brought in, when they bring your things.”

“They’re bringing my things?” Greg hadn’t realised that Mycroft had already sent for them, he tries to focus on it.

Mycroft hums something. “Seemed unfair.” It would have been. But plenty in life is, Greg hadn’t counted on it. “Are you?” He swallows. “Are you tired?”

“A bit,” Greg says, finding it’s true. “We could watch something and then sleep?”

Mycroft agrees and perches on the edge of the bed while Greg stays in the chair and gets the tv going. BBC1 is showing a home-fixing sort of show, so that’s what they watch. It’s dreadful but it does make Greg tired enough to start yawning. When the episode ends he turns to Mycroft.

“Did you want to watch more?”

“No, that’s alright,” Mycroft says. “Terrible show, the things people watch.”

“Yeah,” Greg agrees, a bit absentmindedly as he gets up and puts the cups away.

“And it was a repeat anyway,” Mycroft adds, and that niggles on Greg’s mind until he’s between the sheets. “Oh,” Mycroft says when he steps out of the bathroom and sees Greg.

“What?”

“The... you took the bed,” he says. “Not that you shouldn’t, I’d have insisted of course, but I hadn’t anticipated...” he trails off a bit sadly, his back too straight.

“What?” Greg sits up a little and looks at him. “Did you consider the possibility that I wouldn’t put up a gentlemanly fight for taking the comfy bed because neither of us is sleeping on the floor? Get in here you daft git.” Mycroft sputters a bit more but does as he’s told, lies stiffly on his back. “Besides,” Greg adds, “don’t think I didn’t catch that. Only one way to know something’s a repeat Mr BBC Radio 3.” With that he turns to his side, facing away from Mycroft. He hears Mycroft huff out behind him, and is almost entirely certain that that was a laugh.

 _Silly sod_ , he thinks, _too clever for his own good. Thinks he has it all figured out. Panics as soon as his power fails him and fails to anticipate basic decency_. And then he drifts off.


	2. Chapter 2

Greg wakes in the middle of the night. This is not unusual for him, he’s getting older and they did go to sleep quite early, but for once it is not his bladder that woke him. Besides him Mycroft lies so still that he knows the answer before he asks: “Are you awake?”

“Indeed I am,” Mycroft says back. It hadn’t felt intimate before, they’re really not all that much more to each other than colleagues, after all, but now it does. Greg is feeling very aware that he is in borrowed pyjamas next to possibly the most powerful man in the country. He can smell they’ve both used the same soap and shampoo. The darkness around them makes him feel kept, even if his heart is pounding and he’s feeling overwarm and he’s also hard. He can’t even tell if it’s _still_ or _again_.

“How long did they say until the effects go away again?” He asks.

“Days,” Mycroft sounds long-suffering as he says it. “Are you... are you noticing any effects at all?”

“Yes?” Greg almost laughs. Like he wouldn’t have – “can’t you tell?”

“I have been... distracted,” he says it so delicately that it finally clicks for Greg. The bag, the towel, the way he holds himself so stiffly in one position now.

“If you’d want to – ” he starts, but he has no idea how to finish that sentence. Go have a wank in the other room while I pretend not to be listening? Too weird for sure.

Mycroft makes a strangled little noise, and Greg looks over, and suddenly his mouth is dry. He knows how he’d finish the sentence. What he’d like right now. “Lestrade,” Mycroft says, and it’s hard to place his tone.

“You’ll have to ask for it,” he says, “I won’t if you don’t want to.”

“Please?” asks Mycroft, and it’s so thin, so weak, so needy. Greg leans over and bumps his nose painfully against a cheekbone, tears in his eyes from the sting as he hungrily starts kissing Mycroft. Who kisses back and – the feedback from it is so intense Greg shivers with it, claws at Mycroft’s back. Pulls them tight together. They frantically scramble around aiming for friction and contact and as soon as Greg gets it he comes so hard it hurts his teeth. He shudders with it, face pressed against Mycroft’s neck. Warm hands hold him close, soothe him as he shivers, and Greg's whole skin prickles with it.

“Fuck,” he pants as he tries to reassemble his brain. “Sorry – that. Wow,” he realizes just how wet his pants have become at the same time as he realizes how hard Mycroft still is. “Can I... What d’ya – want?”

Mycroft’s face is contorted with need, easy to see even in the darkness of the room they’ll not be leaving for a while yet. He is trembling all over, and Greg gives an experimental roll of his hips, which has Mycroft cry and arch in a way that makes him forget about how tender he is post mind-shattering release. “Lestrade,” Mycroft whimpers. His hands flutter over Greg’s arms.

“Call me Greg,” Greg tells him, kissing his jaw. He rolls his hips again, starts a bit of a rhythm. “Stop me, tell me you don’t want this.” Mycroft’s whole body twitches when he kisses his ear, so Greg does it again and again, relishes in the involuntary responses of tension and movement and unrestrained noise this gives him. “I swear I’ll stop if you want me to,” he says.

When Mycroft starts coming it is more obvious than Greg’s own orgasm had been. He feels it in the way he shivers, the way his cock and hips and hands move. He leans back to watch just on time, gets the unique privilege of kissing Mycroft’s nose tenderly, over and over again, as he tries to catch his breath.

Mycroft's eyes finally flutter open on an expression Greg doesn’t like at all, and this time when Mycroft twitches away he doesn’t chase him. He rolls away, lets Mycroft have the first shower. He vaguely thinks about how fast they’re going to run through the clothes they have, let alone the bedsheets, as he towels himself dry, and when he climbs back in he decides just pants’ll have to do. If his refractory period of the past few hours is anything to go by, he might be facing a wet dream soon.

He wakes up with the light, and Mycroft’s hair tickling his nose. There’s a possessive hand on his stomach, and he can’t help but smile at it. He remembers the thought he fell asleep to, and carefully traces Mycroft’s spine, delighting in the way it makes Mycroft shiver and claw at him, even in his sleep. When Mycroft’s hips start rolling he deliberates waking him up so they can do the consenting properly thing, but then he hears the unmistakable noise of a car on gravel. He slips free, endlessly carefully, and pulls on jeans and a sweater, peeks out the door. There’s someone in a hazmat suit setting another big bag down on the ground. Greg puts on his shoes and goes out, waves at the men in the van before they leave.

The bag contains some of his stuff, not much more than a change of clothes by the looks of it. Which means they must’ve found a way into his apartment. There is also a huge stack of paperwork. He leaves that for Mycroft, gets undressed again, and slips back under the covers.

When he wakes again, Mycroft is sitting on the chair, fully dressed, looking like he’s had yet another shower. He’s making his way through the pile of paper, but Greg is currently more interested in the steaming mug he’s holding and the smell of coffee in the air.

“On the nightstand,” Mycroft says, without looking up, and indeed. Just how he likes it.

“Anything worth knowing in there?” Greg asks, and Mycroft finally looks at him. Something about the expression on his face reminds Greg of just how little he’s wearing, and he only barely resists the urge to pull the covers up to cover his chest. Mycroft will learn to deal.

“The effects have never been tested in humans,” Mycroft says, taking off his reading glasses and setting them aside. “But what we do know is that it excites rats, for days.”

“So everyone knows we’re on rat Viagra?” Greg summarizes. He hadn’t phrased it that way to shock Mycroft, but can’t help but grin at the face he makes. “Aw, it’s a bit funny, or it will be if that’s all it is.”

“ _All it is_ ,” Mycroft grumbles. His face twists unhappily and he stares out the window.

“Seriously,” Greg says. “We’re in this together, we’re well-stocked, no one will ever hear from me what happened while we were here, what else is there?”

“I’ve a reputation,” Mycroft says, as if he’s already entirely resigned to that being a _had_ , “and my subordinates just left me _that_.”

He nods to the table, and Greg notices for the first time that there’s a litre-bottle of lube there. With a handy little pump on top.

“Look all I’m saying,” Greg says, after he’s had some personal time in the shower and can think again, “if they think we’re doing it, we might as well.” Mycroft looks at him like he’s suggested fucking a sequoia, and Greg remembers to emphasize the other relevant variable. “If we want to.”

“What if what we’ve been exposed to does not merely affect our behaviour?” Mycroft suggests.

“What? Like our sanity?” Greg thinks about it. “You make a good point, we don’t know that, and it’s just us here, we can’t check, but do we really need to spend the next few days taking showers every half hour or so?”

Mycroft rolls his eyes. “Or we could do it over the kitchen sink.” It startles a laugh out of Greg, and when he looks at Mycroft properly he realises Mycroft’s been fidgeting with his glasses this whole time. He’s nervous, and he's making up for it with humour.

“Look,” Greg sits down on the table in front of Mycroft, close but not too close, for as far as that’s possible in this hut. “I want to. And if I’m being really honest, I have wanted to. For a while now.” Mycroft looks up at him, does the lie detector thing he does, where his eyes scan Greg’s face and Greg blushes and he feels like he might as well be having his mind read. But it seems to satisfy him. “I had a dog called Pinky as a child,” Greg says, and Mycroft looks at him, frowning now.

“What?”

Greg motions at his face. “That was a lie, now you know what I look like when I lie.”

“Thank you Mrs Hudson I’d love some more brownies,” Mycroft dead-pans. “No that is a lovely colour on you, Molly. Of course I’ll get you some cold cases, Sherlock.”

Greg barks out a laugh, since it’s Mycroft he’s sure these are actual examples, not just lies Greg’s told a hundred variations of. “Touché,” he says, still grinning. It helps. Mycroft relaxes back into the chair a little. “Did your colleagues leave us any other suggestions on how we might spend this time?”

Mycroft rummages around in the bag that’s next to the chair, and when he sits up again he has a whole pile of things. Sex toys, questionnaires, candy underwear, a rubber sheet. Greg looks at it and bobs his head a little. “Indeed,” Mycroft agrees.

“So the way I see it we have two options,” Greg says. “Either we use none of it, and you get to politely ask if they kept the receipts so it can be returned when we get back to London, and we’ll be creative about it and have loads of fun.”

“Or?” Mycroft urges, his eyes bright, his mouth curling. He knows what’s coming.

“Or we use it all,” Greg says, “we’ll be creative about it, and have loads of fun.”

Mycroft looks at his lap, at the bottle that Greg is sitting next to, and then he fishes out one of the questionnaires. “Do we start with these?”


	3. Chapter 3

They decide to have breakfast first, and then a walk, and by the time they’re back it’s been a few hours for both of them and Greg knows it won’t be long until he’ll need a shower. Or something else.

He expects to have to bring it up again, but when he turns back around after hanging his coat, Mycroft is working on his waistcoat. His hands still when he notices Greg’s staring, and he moves them away slowly. “No?”

“No ­– no,” Greg hastens to say. He steps closer, looks at Mycroft, his cheeks a bit flushed from the walk, his hair a bit wild without product. “I mean yes please. Yes – lets.” Mycroft nods, still hesitant, so Greg kisses him, good and proper, until his hands start on Mycroft’s buttons as if independently of his brain. “Tell me stop,” Greg pants into the kiss, “if you – if you don’t want...”

“If you remind me one more time that I can say no any time I might start thinking there’s something there,” Mycroft warns him, but he doesn’t stop his kissing. “Ask me anytime if I’m happy to keep going, and I’ll let you know.”

Greg nods, knows they probably should talk about limits and boundaries and all that a bit more, but he’s been having trouble walking since right after they left the house, when the light hit Mycroft’s hair just so, and he _wants_.

He gets Mycroft naked before he’s even managed to kick his own shoes off, and it’s luck, really, that has him catch the look on Mycroft’s face when he notices. “This is working for you?” He blurts out, and Mycroft nods very earnestly. So he takes Mycroft’s hand, and helps him lie down on the bed, spread out and covered in goose bumps, and then he steps back.

“Are we decided on option one or option two?” Mycroft flushes bright red, nods. Greg gives him space to answer.

“Two,” Mycroft says finally, almost moving, arching his back off the bed a little, tensing his thighs. Like he’d rather hide. Which is not surprising, Greg is not being shy about how he is feasting his eyes. What is interesting is that he doesn’t, he didn’t even need to be told. Greg steps away slowly, ignores his own need to collect the toys, wash them in the sink of the little kitchenette, and set them out on a towel next to Mycroft. Who is so hard it must be genuinely painful.

“Knees up,” Greg suggests, and Mycroft obeys, his face a deep red. He holds himself open like he’s done this before, and Greg decides not to ask. Just gets him a pillow for under his hips. Mycroft opens so beautifully for Greg that he skips the smallest-size plug, and then he gets to watch the way it makes Mycroft shiver all over, even without any further stimulation. It’s wonderfully expressive, everything about Mycroft is, from the way he arches his neck to how he pants. Greg finds the shitty little flogger that came in their sex parcel. It’s barely out of the packaging and the piece of tape that’s holding one end together is already peeling, but he wasn’t intending to do anything wild with it anyway.

Mycroft doesn’t seem to have deduced that yet, though, his eyes are wide and round as he looks at the flogger in Greg’s hands. But he doesn’t move.

“Stretch out your legs?” It takes Mycroft a second but he does, and Greg helps him with the pillow so his back won’t be sore. Then he tickles Mycroft’s skin with the end bits of the flogger and gets to watch Mycroft arch off the bed, cock leaking, crying out with need. He’d ask him to roll onto his stomach, if he wasn’t so certain that’d be enough friction to have it all be over immediately. He plays with Mycroft’s hyper-sensitive skin, the way he needs and babbles and finally begs, and then tosses the flogger to the side. Sits between his stretched legs, soothes him with firm slow strokes on his thighs. Mycroft comes before Greg has fully wrapped his lips around his cock, sobbing with it, covering his eyes with trembling hands. Immediately Greg crawls over him, unsure of if he can touch, what sort of _afters_ Mycroft prefers.

“I’m ok,” Mycroft promises, between gasping little breaths, tears still flowing, and Greg rests his whole body weight onto him, doesn’t need to ask if that's allowed when Mycroft clings to him, when his breathing slows immediately. “You should fuck me,” he whispers, and Greg has been on edge for hours by now – Mycroft’s rough voice is almost enough to undo him. “Like this, just push your trousers down, take the plug out, have me like this.”

“You’ll be sore,” Greg protests, and Mycroft looks him right in the eye. All right then, should’ve realised that Mycroft of course already knows that. “Really?” Greg asks, but he’s on board. And Mycroft just nods.

He leans back to work the plug out, is extra generous with the lube and bites down on his lower lip as he sinks in. Slow as he can. He digs his nails into his own thigh, uses his free hand to hold Mycroft’s leg, and when he’s seated he leans forward again. Mycroft’s breathing is short and staccato, his nails scratch over Greg’s sweaty back, it takes no time at all to come.

“Keep going,” Mycroft whispers, and so he does, in and out, not too far, not too fast. Mycroft winces and whimpers and looks like he’s in terrible pain, every touch too much. When Greg sits back a little, hard again, and picks up his pace, Mycroft releases his death grip on the bedsheets and brings trembling hands down. The sheets are soaked, everything smells of sex. He can’t open his eyes properly anymore, just squints at Greg as he urges him with breathy moans to keep going – don’t stop – keep going. When he cups his balls with one hand and his cock with the other, and Greg keeps up his rhythm, his back arches off the bed again, he cries out with it, his legs quiver and Greg comes too, hard enough he’d worry if maybe he’s cracked a rib. If he had any space left to think.

He wakes up – or comes to, more like – with the sheets getting cold and clammy, and the space beside him empty. Greg rolls onto his back and contemplates how sore he is, how thoroughly fucked he feels. He wriggles his toes and looks up when he hears the bathroom door creak. His abs protest their further abuse.

Mycroft moves carefully, on anyone else it’d be called limping, and his hair has been combed, but there’s a looseness to his shoulders that can’t be faked. So Greg lies back down. “Should bottle this stuff,” he says.

“Pardon?” Mycroft meets his eyes.

“Better than Viagra,” Greg says. He realises what he’s just admitted to and can only laugh about it. It is. Mycroft has a strange look on his face, like he’d be fond if he weren’t worried, and Greg wishes he had any right to ask. Stands up to go have a shower instead.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry lads I lied I'm not done yet

Dinner is nice, Mycroft had started cooking while Greg showered so Greg had changed the sheets and put on a film. Mycroft sits in the chair, and Greg does them both the favour of figuring out that it fits two people if one of them sits on the arm and the other holds his food up a bit so it doesn’t get kicked. “What if we’re stuck like this forever,” Greg wonders into his pasta.

Mycroft makes only the smallest noise, but Greg has been paying attention to only Mycroft for a day. He looks up at him. Mycroft has a peculiar expression on his face.

“What?” Greg asks.

“It has been six hours,” Mycroft says as if that explains. “Initially our refractionary period was approximately thirty minutes, and discomfort set in at the one-hour mark.”

Greg can’t help but smile at him, too fond to stop himself. “Of course you counted.” It’s not even a question, he’s well aware that Mycroft couldn’t stop himself if he tried. “So what’s your prediction?”

“That we will be remarkably and embarrassingly similar to the rats,” Mycroft says. “A peak around the twelve-hour mark, and then a tapering until the effects resolve.”

“No way to tell though?” Greg asks, aiming for sly, and he can tell it goes way over Mycroft’s head. “That it’ll be tapering the same way the rats did? We might get another peak?”

“That’d be exceedingly uncomfortable,” Mycroft points out, as if Greg doesn’t remember.

He lays it on thicker: “Better make sure we won’t be uncomfortable then, right?”

Mycroft just blinks at him, and then turns back to his food. It cuts off any semblance of thought process Greg might have had. He has no idea what to say next. Does he not want to? Or is it that he doesn’t understand what Greg is trying to say?

Deciding that he’ll make a better decision on a full stomach, Greg turns back to his food too. They watch the rest of the Pirates of the Caribbean film in silence. Greg refuses not to enjoy the way his toes are tucked under Mycroft’s thigh, the way they’re close enough that he can smell Mycroft, clean and warm.

“I do not understand,” Mycroft says, as Greg spits out his toothpaste. It’s clear he’s been eagerly anticipating the moment where Greg would be able to answer properly and has mistimed it because of this eagerness.

“Sorry?” Greg asks as he tries to rinse his mouth and clean his face as fast as possible.

“These Pirates,” Mycroft says, “why did they want the Dutch men but not the East Indies Company?”

Greg can’t help but frown at him. “The Flying Dutchman is a ship, it’s – Mycroft this isn’t a very good movie.”

“So?”

“It’s not going to make sense.” Mycroft makes a face at that, so uninhibited, so genuine and sweet and displeased at other people’s lack of artistic pride, it overwhelms Greg with the urge to step in and hold Mycroft’s face as tenderly as he can between his clumsy paws, and kiss him. Mycroft blinks at him. “That’s faster than anticipated.”

“What?” Greg tries to remember what they were talking about before and also stop smoothing his thumb over Mycroft’s face. “No, no.” He looks into Mycroft’s pale eyes. “This isn’t sex. The mystery stuff is a sex thing, right? This hasn’t anything to do with sex.”

“You don’t want to have sex?” Mycroft asks, and of course Greg wants to have sex. They should probably talk about this, but he’s hard, and so is Mycroft, and they have about two dozen sex toys to try as whatever the lab marinated them with ‘tapers’.

“Of course I do,” Greg promises, and Mycroft’s smile starts small but it grows, full of energy and light. “Do you?”

“Quite,” he says, and then he turns around. He’s on the bed before Greg can turn off the bathroom light and close the door, and looks more enticing than – than anyone ever has, surely. The light of the little lamp by the bed reflects on his skin, and his soft pyjamas make him look touchable, like if Greg were to –

“May I?” he asks.

“By all means,” Mycroft offers, like it doesn’t even matter what Greg wants, he wants it too. He lies back on the pillows, and Greg doesn’t want toys, he doesn’t want a litre bottle of lube, he just wants to be home. He kneels over Mycroft and lies down gently, careful not to put too much of his weight on him, his face on Mycroft’s stomach. Mycroft jerks a little, like he hadn’t expected Greg to do this at all, but then he settles, his hands first on Greg’s shoulders and then, slowly, trailing up his neck to play with his hair. Greg shudders, all over, and Mycroft stills.

“Good shivers,” he promises. He doesn’t want him to stop, doesn’t have the words. “Please?”

Mycroft’s hand settles in his hair again, sets up a lazy exploration, scratching gently with fingertips. It hurts in a way Greg can’t put words too, so he just bears it. Tries to breathe through it. Of course Mycroft notices. His hand stills. “What is it?” He says, and his voice is endlessly, unbearably gently. Greg chokes on it, wanting to explain and failing to, and just curls up a little, clings to Mycroft. Who holds him close, as if instinctively, and it’s just that what’s hurting.

Greg tries to lean in to it, the way he knows to lean in to a massage, but it becomes too much quite fast, so he leans up for a kiss. With gentle slow kisses he gets Mycroft’s hips rolling haltingly, his breathing gentle little pants against Greg’s upper lip. Greg lifts his hands to Mycroft’s face again and tries to prove how much this is, how much more this is than what he could put words to.

“Are you alright?” Mycroft asks, and the answer is no, of course, but he doesn’t want to talk about it. And Mycroft lets him, kisses him back just as slowly and tenderly as he needs. When Greg speeds up Mycroft follows, and soon they are rolling their hips together. Greg works open Mycroft’s clothes, and lets Mycroft help him out of his clothes, too.

He lies back down on top of Mycroft when they’ve fully undressed and relishes in the skin-on-skin, the warmth, the tingle of hairs catching, tiny movements that bring them even closer. They kiss and kiss and Mycroft’s hands grow restless on Greg’s back. “You can,” he says between kisses but it has been a very very long time. As soon as Mycroft gets a little more daring with his fingers, Greg gasps. So Mycroft pulls away.

“If you want this we can do it. I’m happy to do anything, either way, but I’ll not be made to feel like you’re having to force yourself if you don’t mind.” His tone is stern.

It’s fair, and Greg wants to tell him, but when he sits back a little and his knees hurt to lean on and he feels old and grey and tired, he can’t find the headspace he needs to turn the tables. So he stretches out next to Mycroft, buries his face in his neck and gets tiny little kitten kisses along his ear for his effort. “Just a lot,” he says. “I like it, love it, have wanted to for ages with you.”

“But?”

“No but,” Greg says, trying to find the words for what he’s feeling. “I think I’ve wanted it too much for too long, ‘s all just really overwhelming.”

Mycroft hums against his ear, more fond than disapproving, and his hand hasn’t stopped petting Greg’s back. “How would you like...” Mycroft whispers. “To fuck me while wearing one of the plugs we were so kindly provided with.”

It’s an excellent idea, and Greg doesn’t waste a second getting their gear together. When he lays it all out on the bed, Mycroft lies back, spreads his knees, and pumps some lube onto his stomach. With absolutely no shame at all he lies the largest plug in the puddle and then uses two wet fingers to get started on himself. Greg can only stare, too hard too breathless to do anything.

“Fuck,” he gasps, when Mycroft slips the plug in with a needy little whine.

Mycroft pounces on him, helps him breathe and stay distracted as he slips the little plug in, and then rolls over, onto his hands and knees. “Do it now,” he urges, and Greg does. He remembers all of this, even the ache he feels inside of himself as he pushes in, no rushing no stopping no sudden movements.

“Gotta come,” he says, because his whole skin is singing and he won’t be able to stop soon, Mycroft looks at him over his shoulder. Only want is left on his face.

After, when they’ve caught their breaths and Greg has had a little wipedown in the bathroom, he finds Mycroft out in front of their shed. He’s starting to get a bit fond of it, this little wooden thing. When he opens the door and inhales deeply, Mycroft looks up at him, large startled eyes. “Ah – ” Greg says. “Sorry did you need a minute to yourself? I can – ”

“No, no,” says Mycroft, and he brings the cigarette he is holding to his mouth. It’s unlit, still, and so Greg takes out his own lighter and holds it out for Mycroft. Mycroft inhales deeply, with such an expression of calm on his face, that Greg wants in. He fishes the cigarette out from between Mycroft’s lips and takes the deepest breath he’s had all day, feels full with it, feels it affect his heart rate. Then Mycroft steals it back.

Greg can’t help but laugh when he settles on the little stoop. They’re side-by-side, leaning against the place they’ll be needing to spend at least a few more days at, together against all odds. So Greg leans to the side just a little. Lets their shoulders rest against each other.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that took longer than I wanted it to! Apologies for those I've left hanging <3 Hope you all had a lovely Easter (if that's your thing)

The next morning Greg wakes up without an armful of warm Mycroft. Instead there’s a packed bag standing in the middle of the room, and when he sits up, he can hear an unhappy phone call going on. He doesn’t bother with clothes and doesn’t realise he hasn’t until he opens the door. Mycroft is fully dressed, his hair is neatly combed, and alright, maybe Greg understands why it worked for Mycroft to be naked while Greg wasn’t. The twitching he feels doesn’t immediately progress to raging painful far-too-hard so Mycroft must have been right. The effects are over.

“... and furthermore,” he hears Mycroft say, “as you’ll find in form 12.3 F – no. No, don’t. Anthea listen to – ” He looks at his phone, dumbfounded, as apparently he’s been foiled by his PA. Form 12.3 F notwithstanding.

“Bad news?” Greg asks, and Mycroft shoots him the most unimpressed look he’s ever been on the receiving end of.

“We shall be staying here for another day,” Mycroft announces.

“I’m sorry to hear 12.3 F didn’t work for you,” Greg says, hoping for a joke, and Mycroft just looks him up and down, blinks, and goes back inside.

He doesn’t change out of his suit. Instead he sits in the armchair with his paperwork and his glasses and his stern unhappy face. Greg thinks about it, remembers he’s still naked, and decides to do something about this.

It doesn’t take long to get Mycroft’s attention, not with the noises Greg is making as he works the dildo in millimetre by millimetre. This used to be easier, but he also didn’t use to have a sore shoulder and candy underwear on. Not to mention the spreader bar, or the way he’s managed to attach it to the headboard of the bed. He can tell by the way Mycroft stops turning pages that he’s not reading anymore, and then – score.

“Greg,” Mycroft gasps. He walks over and stands at the foot of the bed. He looks disappointingly not-aroused.

“What?” Greg says, really hoping they can get on with it. But Mycroft opens up the handcuffs, unties the buckles around Greg’s ankles, picks a plug without even looking and slips it in the second Greg pulls out the dildo – perfect fit of course, the bastard. He pulls free the covers and makes sure Greg will stay warm and then sits on the bedside table, looking down at Greg.

“What is this?”

Greg feels himself flush, he doesn’t want to be coddled or talked to, he wants to have sex and feel good dammit. “Well you see someone released some unknown bullshit into this secret underground lab we were hiding in – ”

“You’re feeling its effects still?”

“Yes,” Greg says, and Mycroft looks at him with his steel blue eyes and he doesn’t even blink and – “no.” He turns his head so he can look at the ceiling.

“Then what?” urges Mycroft.

“I just want to,” Greg admits, but only to the ceiling. The plug isn’t so cold anymore, inside of him. And neither are his hands or feet, come to think of it. He remembers what they talked about earlier, “and I will want to! I’ve been wanting to!”

“So you thought...” Mycroft doesn’t usually trail off and Greg takes the cue.

“We’ve been having a good time,” he shrugs as he says it, almost hopes Mycroft can somehow tell he’s not so indifferent after all. The melancholy he’s been feeling since Mycroft pointed out yesterday that their time here would soon be over comes back in full force. He looks at Mycroft anyway.

“Do we talk more?” Mycroft asks, gently. “Or would you prefer to show me what you can do with a spreader bar?”

Greg can’t help but laugh. “Let’s do it,” he says. He straps his legs in again, struggles to roll over as Mycroft looks at him. Mycroft is undressing slowly, taking care to hang all of his clothes, and when he is naked and has put a glass of water and a bar of chocolate on the bedside table, he helps attach the cuffs around Greg’s wrists to the bar. Greg leans on one shoulder, knows he looks eager and wanton, and gets hard just thinking about it.

Mycroft grins at the lube bottle while he pumps out more than anyone would consider necessary, and Greg laughs along. They’ll be halfway through by the time they’re picked up here, at this rate. With Mycroft warm and draped over his neck, slick fingers playing with the toy and gentle puffs of air against the shell of his ear, Greg thinks _we can’t ever stop_.

“You too, right?” he asks, and the huff by his ear tells him Mycroft gets what he means. “Sorry,” Greg says, “I said I – no talking. Sex first.”

“I can multitask,” Mycroft says, and he pulls out the toy to prove it, slides two fingers in. “The question is can you?” The answer is _no_ , but Greg can’t tell him that, he’s busy breathing. “Greg, if only you could see yourself,” Mycroft continues, his fingers torture Greg can’t escape, his breath salvation Greg can’t understand. “You are capable and beautiful and stunningly kind. I have wanted you since the first time I saw you, and I will never stop. I’m surprised you couldn’t tell – that I managed to hide something so enormous from an excellent detective like yourself.”

It deserves a response, and Greg fights to be able to give it. The rhythm Mycroft has set is exquisite he feels like he could come like this if only – “I was,” he pants. “A little distracted.”

Mycroft laughs again, kisses his way from Greg’s ear to the nape of his neck, then down his spine. The little pump wheezes, once, twice, and then the fingers go. Greg breathes as his eyes fill, tries to focus only on how his ribcage expands and shrinks with his breath. It works, it always does, and warm sticky hands soothe his sides, kisses land between his shoulder blades, Mycroft holds him by his hips as he fucks him. There is no way to help, and Greg gets pushed up the bed with every thrust, knows Mycroft will have to stop if he can’t come before Greg’s head hits the headboard, so close so _close_... Mycroft pulls out all the way.

Steps away from the bed, from the noise his bare feet make on the floor. When the bed dips again Greg is having trouble breathing.

“Shouldn’t have left you,” Mycroft apologizes with more kisses to his spine, “do you need something?”

Greg shakes no as best as he can and Mycroft helps him resettle on the bed, then straps a broad band around his waist. The fake leather is cold against Greg’s skin, the little seams tickle, but when Mycroft sinks back in and has a much better grip, a much steadier pace, nothing else matters. Then a hand sneaks around to touch his cock and he almost jerks away from it, barely has time to warn Mycroft, comes and comes as Mycroft keeps fucking him until his hips stutter, his breath hitches, and he comes too.

“Fuck,” hisses Greg, when he stretches his arms, and then his legs. He moves his head from side to side, he’ll be feeling this in the morning. Mycroft offers him the glass of water, and they share the chocolate between them. Two more glasses of water too.

“What’s next?” Mycroft asks, standing next to the bed, still naked but now soft. Greg moves over, settles down with Mycroft in the bed that’s two small, really, for two adult men. They’re tangled up together, and Greg plays with Mycroft’s hair. “Don’t you need – holding? Or – ”

“Hair petting?” Greg laughs, “not particularly, though if you’d wrap that arm around me I think that’d be nice.” Mycroft sighs like he really does need to be held, and to be allowed to do so is better comfort than Greg could have imagined. “I’m sorry – for earlier. I should have – I should have just told you. I don’t want this to end.”

“Neither do I,” Mycroft admits. And Greg’s head fills up with a million questions, but he lets them go when Mycroft stifles a yawn. “We’ll go home tomorrow,” Mycroft says, like it surprises him a little.

“And then we’ll buy some better toys,” Greg promises. Mycroft leans back to look at him, so Greg seals it with a kiss. Then they settle again. First they’ll sleep.


End file.
